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What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

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Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#171

Post by grecy »

run4yourlives wrote: post #134
grecy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but your employer is still deducting that amount from your paycheck, so you are losing out. (At the Canadian company I work for, they estimate the 'benefits' overhead is around 26% of my salary - Yes, that is extremely high, because I can't choose the plan or coverage, the company dictates it for me. Married people with 10 kids pay the same amount I do... so you can see I'm getting a shit deal and would much r…

That's a condition of your employment though. Nothing is forcing them to offer a health plan at all.

Nothing is forcing them to offer it, but I'm expressing my opinion and saying something should force them not to, because my employer should have nothing to do with my health

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#172

Post by wissler »

jgon wrote: post #168
wissler wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you don't like it, leave." Might doesn't make right. This land is not all your land. You may have total and utter domination of it, but that's not a moral argument.

No it doesn't make right. But, excepting various inalienable rights, majority makes right in a representative democracy. And the majority have said that they derive greater utility out of having these rules and regulations than not having them. By staying in the society you are agreeing to abide by them, and to deal with the punishments for breaking them. You are not forced to stay in society though, so you can rejec…

You're begging the question, which is: is it legitimately "your land" to tell me to leave in the first place? (The answer by the way is "no.")

If the property legitimately belonged to you, then I'd have no problem with "my house, my rules, love them or leave them", but nothing but ownership gives you that kind of prerogative. You are making a pure might makes right argument, it's completely amoral. (Incidentally, do some research about what this megalomanical kind of "ownership" leads to, e.g. "Trail of Tears.")

Your reasoning is that of a child, not mine.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#173

Post by jaaron »

wissler wrote: post #161
jaaron wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't point a gun to your head. Instead, we agree on a mechanism by which to make decisions and reach compromise. As everyone has different opinions and agendas, compromise is required. Not everyone, no one perhaps, will get their full agenda realized. Via those mechanisms (voting, representation, legislating, enforcement), we establish the rules of the society. If you don't like the rules of the society, you c…

I didn't agree. There's no concise way to answer why your underlying political philosophy is wrong, unfortunately. One thing that should be a clue though is that the majority agrees with you. That's always a bad sign. As it happens I did write a book on this topic, I don't know what the etiquette is here for posting links, just search "for individual rights" in books, you'll see it. If I could provide a more concise…

Ah, see now we're getting into what are "natural rights" which is much more tricky, yes.

The facts of the matter are that we find ourselves born into some particular land and some particular society. We have no choice about these things, we didn't ask to be born. But yet by being born at a particular time and place causes rights and responsibilities to be thrust upon us. Agreements for us have been made my ancestors, neighbors and invaders without our consent.

My assessment is that despite this scenario not being idea, it is in fact the world we live in and history has its claims upon us without our choice or consent. Life just isn't fair. The choices for us are then not the choice of what our ideal world would be like, what our ideal contracts and agreements would be, but a choice of how to deal with the world as it is. In that case, we find ourselves bound by agreements and in a system not of our own choosing. Again, we are faced with the same decisions I outlined previously: work within the system, leave the system, fight the system. The choice of staying within the system but not abiding by its rules is effectively the same as fighting it, i.e.- expect resistance (the metaphorical gun you mentioned).

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#174

Post by wissler »

jaaron wrote: post #173
wissler wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't agree. There's no concise way to answer why your underlying political philosophy is wrong, unfortunately. One thing that should be a clue though is that the majority agrees with you. That's always a bad sign. As it happens I did write a book on this topic, I don't know what the etiquette is here for posting links, just search "for individual rights" in books, you'll see it. If I could provide a more concise…

Ah, see now we're getting into what are "natural rights" which is much more tricky, yes. The facts of the matter are that we find ourselves born into some particular land and some particular society. We have no choice about these things, we didn't ask to be born. But yet by being born at a particular time and place causes rights and responsibilities to be thrust upon us. Agreements for us have been made my ancestors,…

We can do better than create and maintain a system that intrinsically requires coercion of peaceful people, and in fact this underling violence has a plethora of unintended consequences. We can do better. We must strive toward the ideal.

The gun isn't metaphorical, it's very real.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#175

Post by jaaron »

wissler wrote: post #172
jgon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't make right. But, excepting various inalienable rights, majority makes right in a representative democracy. And the majority have said that they derive greater utility out of having these rules and regulations than not having them. By staying in the society you are agreeing to abide by them, and to deal with the punishments for breaking them. You are not forced to stay in society though, so you can rejec…

You're begging the question, which is: is it legitimately "your land" to tell me to leave in the first place? (The answer by the way is "no.") If the property legitimately belonged to you, then I'd have no problem with "my house, my rules, love them or leave them", but nothing but ownership gives you that kind of prerogative. You are making a pure might makes right argument, it's completely amoral. (Incidentally, do…

That depends on our definition of property rights and sovereignty. You may "own" the land, but you are not sovereign on that land. The larger society, which claimed and defended the land prior to your ownership claims, has sovereignty over it and thus you while within those borders. If you do not wish to abide by the laws of the society, then you cannot claim land within that society's borders without emancipating the land. For better or worse, such rebellions are difficult to pull off.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#176

Post by wissler »

jaaron wrote: post #175
wissler wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're begging the question, which is: is it legitimately "your land" to tell me to leave in the first place? (The answer by the way is "no.") If the property legitimately belonged to you, then I'd have no problem with "my house, my rules, love them or leave them", but nothing but ownership gives you that kind of prerogative. You are making a pure might makes right argument, it's completely amoral. (Incidentally, do…

That depends on our definition of property rights and sovereignty. You may "own" the land, but you are not sovereign on that land. The larger society, which claimed and defended the land prior to your ownership claims, has sovereignty over it and thus you while within those borders. If you do not wish to abide by the laws of the society, then you cannot claim land within that society's borders without emancipating th…

Your conception is, to pick a metaphor, straight out of "The Matrix." Check your assumptions, you'll find that one of them is wrong, or arbitrary (which is really the same thing).

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#177

Post by OldSchool »

jimbokun wrote: post #166
OldSchool wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the ONE truly profitable piece of legal advice I've ever received from a lawyer: Having an insurance policy really only guarantees you the right to sue your insurance company if they refuse to pay a claim. He said this as we walked outdoors in a large American city and then pointed out the tallest building on the skyline - an insurance company HQ. This wasn't health insurance but the point is the same.

Isn't that true of any contract?

True, but the insurance industry is one where profits come specifically from not delivering anything.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#178

Post by [deleted] »

jimbokun wrote: post #166
OldSchool wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the ONE truly profitable piece of legal advice I've ever received from a lawyer: Having an insurance policy really only guarantees you the right to sue your insurance company if they refuse to pay a claim. He said this as we walked outdoors in a large American city and then pointed out the tallest building on the skyline - an insurance company HQ. This wasn't health insurance but the point is the same.

Isn't that true of any contract?

[deleted]

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#179

Post by grecy »

run4yourlives wrote: post #163
grecy wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like being offered a cell phone or a car allowance. Which reduces your overall salary - you might not be aware of it, and it might not be said in those terms, but it's absolutely true. All "side benefits" or "perks" of employment are just a way for the employer to give you something other than money. Too bad if the last thing you want is a cell phone. > Why in god's name you would turn down what in many cases…

At this point though, you are evaluating employers, not health care systems. It's pretty easy to find an employer in Canada that offers no benefit plan at all, just stay away from larger companies. Most privately run businesses would be more than happy contracting you at a higher rate and not paying you any additional benefits, or their share of CPP or EI. They are a significant expense to the company. Go get yoursel…

> you are evaluating employers, not health care systems.

No I'm not. One health care system outright makes that illegal, so it's the health care system defining this, not the employers.

On that note, have you ever lived&worked in a system other than Canada's?

I ask, because you think Canada is "right on the money" with their system... though it makes me think you've not seen how other systems do it.

Don't get me wrong, Canada's system is good, but if I were in a country about to radically overhaul health care, I would by no means adopt Canada's system as-is (or any other single country, for that matter)

> if this is that much of an issue for you

You miss the point here thinking this is about me... The overall effect on society is very interesting and speaks volumes about a given system. Without a doubt, because of this "group plan" idea, Canadians are tied much more strongly to their employer, and that results in employees being treated worse, and overall a "negative" impact on those around me.

I don't like that about Canada's way of doing it.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#180

Post by jacoblyles »

tptacek wrote: post #132
beagle3 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and that is perhaps one of the two coherent claims made by republicans against a decent public options (single payer or otherwise). Coherent Claim 1: The existence of a public option harms the viability and structure of a private option Coherent Claim 2: A healthy, careful individual should not be forced to subsidize an individual who does not take care of their own health - but is forced to by a public optio…

Those two "coherent claims" are so broad that they capture most of the the individual specific arguments made against public health insurance; a conservative could reply that there are only a few "coherent claims" for public insurance too. And, obviously, Republicans aren't big fans of public schools either. In fact, unlike private health care, which is out-executed by Medicare, public education is generally outperfo…

Your support of public monopoly education is interesting to me, as your comments on this thread make you sound like a thoughtful, well-informed person. Presumably there are some aspects of public monopoly education you would like to change. Do you support seniority-based pay scales, strong unions, and teacher tenure?

There's a few education economists that have noted that if we could fire the worst 7% of teachers in the US and replace them with merely average teachers, then the US would have the best schools in the world (Eric Hanushek out of Stanford is one). This is a vital and cheap policy for us to carry out, but it is well-known that you can't get fired from government jobs. I can't imaging school systems being the first to change.

Do you think it is politically possible to reform the worst parts of the public monopoly school systems with its current structure? School boards in population-dense areas are often staffed exclusively with union representatives. What model of the world convinces you that these school bureaucracies will do what is right for the students?

I find the arguments for student educational choice to be compelling. In a place like Washington DC, I think it will be much more effective to simply pay for the students to attend good schools than to reform schools that have been horrible (and overfunded!) for decades.

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